from the if-you-can't-do-it-right,-why-not-do-it-fraudulently? dept

Solvera -- a reputation management firm allegedly engaging in legal fraud to delist criticism -- is facing multiple legal problems as a result of its highly-questionable services. In late August, the Texas Attorney General filed a complaint against the company, alleging it defrauded courts by filing bogus defamation lawsuits on behalf of possibly-unaware clients, utilizing duped lawyers with bogus statements from fake defendants.

This sort of behavior has been uncovered in recent months through investigations by Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen and lawprof/blogger Eugene Volokh. It has also been revealed through independent research by Pissed Consumer, an obvious target of these unsavory (and illegal) reputation management tactics.

Pissed Consumer is also going against Solvera. It has sued the company in Contra Costa County, California -- Solvera's backyard -- along with a number of other firms in the reputation management business and the companies they've created to act as plaintiffs in bogus defamation lawsuits.

It's pretty much identical to the lawsuit Pissed Consumer filed last year against a number of defendants, including the lawyers whose name appeared on the bogus paperwork: Mark Lapham and Owen Mascott. The previous lawsuit referenced Nevada Corporate Headquarters -- the apparent origin point of some of these bogus lawsuits -- but the latest adds Solvera as a defendant.

It also places much of the alleged blame on the embattled rep management firm. From the filing [PDF]:

Plaintiff is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that Defendant Solvera Group, Inc. (“Solvera”) is a California corporation incorporated under the laws of California, and orchestrated some or all of these schemes of fake litigation to remove consumer reviews.

The allegations are repeated numerous times, thanks to the long list of defendants. But here's one rundown of the rep management scam, apparently involving Solvera and the two California lawyers.

Plaintiff is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that Defendant Solvera or Doe Corporation, operating as a reputation management company, conceived of the plan and organized the cooperation of Hair Solutions, Radonich, and Owen T. Mascott to bring the plan to fruition.

Since September 2010, at least 949 individuals have posted complaints about Keranique on PissedConsumer.com. Additionally, numerous comments have been posted by third parties in response to those complaints. The majority of the comments have been negative.

Plaintiff is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that at the bequest of Defendant Solvera or Doe Corporation and with the full cooperation of Defendant Radonich, Mr. Mascott filed a complaint on behalf of Hair Solutions against Radonich for defamation.

In the underlying action the conspirators sought only injunctive relief. Specifically, the complaint requested an injunction that Radonich be “ordered to take all action, including but not limited to, requesting removal from the Internet search engines including Google, Yahoo!, and Bing of all defamatory, disparaging, libelous, and false statements about Plaintiff that Defendant has posted on the Internet.”

Mr. Mascott filed the Complaint on January 7, 2016. On information and belief, at all relevant times Mascott knew that Radonich was not the author of the statements at issue in the Radonich Case, and thus was not a proper defendant in that case.

Shortly thereafter, on January 13, 2016, Mascott filed a Stipulation for Final Judgment and Permanent Injunction with the Superior Court, containing a jurat from Radonich dated January 9, 2016. (See Exhibit 5.) On information and belief, Mascott coordinated with Radonich as Radonich’s attorney in acquiring this stipulation, such that he simultaneously represented both parties in the Radonich Case.

Having obtained a stipulated injunction from the Court, the conspirators then approached various search engines including, on information and belief, Google, Yahoo!, and Bing and requested that those search engines deindex the pages of Pissed Consumer. Instead of limiting the deindexing to the pages that contained statements Radonich claimed to have posted, the request to deindex included all web pages with entries about Keranique.

By engaging in this scheme, Defendant Conspirators obtained a court order under false pretenses and used the court order to persuade popular search engines to deindex every statement about Keranique, including the First Amendment protected statements of opinion and true fact posted by other individuals who were not a party to the underlying action.

And on it goes for several pages, detailing reputation management companies creating sham companies and bogus defendants -- with the apparent assistance of cooperative lawyers -- to delist content for paying clients. Whether or not clients actually knew this was happening remains to be seen, but the Texas AG's complaint claims Solvera lied to both its customers and the lawyers it used about the lawsuits it was filing. However, the two lawyers named here appear to have been complicit in the scheme, although they may never have been used directly by Solvera.

Needless to say, Google has stepped up its rejections of questionable court orders targeting protected speech. The increased scrutiny makes this fraudulent scheme less of a sure thing for shady reputation management companies. In Solvera's case, nuking criticism with fraudulently-obtained court orders was apparently big business, with its owner claiming to charge $50,000-$100,000 for this delisting service. (He's also a fan of Right to Be Forgotten, which makes cosmic sense but not business sense.) Hopefully, Solvera socked some of that cash away. It's got a lot of people to answer to.

from the can't-even-manage-a-lawsuit,-much-less-its-reputation dept

Abbey Dental of Las Vegas doesn't like the number of negative reviews that are piling up at Pissed Consumer. But that's about all it (and its lawyers) know. It seems to understand that taking on Pissed Consumer with a defamation lawsuit would be a complete failure, as would be any effort it made to sue individual reviewers. Nevada has an anti-SLAPP law in place, which would fit Abbey Dental's attempt to artificially resuscitate its reputation to a tee.

So, instead of handling this in the normal way (which would also be the route least likely to succeed), the company has decided to take a more oblique approach: a lawsuit filed in federal court (to better dodge the state's anti-SLAPP law) centered on a variety of tremendously stupid trademark infringement claims.

Pissed Consumer, represented by Marc Randazza, has decided to swerve as well -- the better to attack Abbey Dental's circuitous claims head on and ensure it doesn't escape the anti-SLAPP statute it's so desperate to avoid.

As is noted in the first footnote of Pissed Consumer's motion to dismiss/summary judgment request [PDF], the defendant and its lawyer have given Abbey Dental plenty of time to back away from the precipice.

[Abbey Dental's] complaint was filed on October 27, 2015. Shortly thereafter, Defendant warned Plaintiff that the case was frivolous and would be subject to an Anti-SLAPP motion. (See Email from Randazza to Amin dated Jan. 6, 2016, attached hereto as Exhibit 1.) Defendant spent more than a year trying to get Plaintiff to come to its senses. After eight extensions seeking to avoid this, Defendant finally filed its first Anti-SLAPP motion. (ECF No. 25.) Plaintiff responded by filing an Amended Complaint 1 day later. The Amended Complaint simply compounds the problem, and cures nothing.

Abbey Dental's lawyers are creative, but the arguments made are novel, which is a judicial term for "wtf." The company -- in its desperation to avoid having to deal with Section 230 of the CDA -- claims that Pissed Consumer has done everything from domain name squatting to abuse of keywords/metatags (something settled a long time ago) to injure its trademarked name. Pretty much everything in its complaint is -- at best -- stupid bullshit.

Abbey argues that using the words “Abbey Dental” on a web page with consumer reviews about Abbey creates a likelihood of confusion in the minds of consumers by making them think that the web site is affiliated with Abbey. This makes no sense. This use is clearly nominative fair use.

[...]

The first issue is Opinion’s use of search result copy on Google. The copy that accompanies a search result for the term “abbey dental” that leads users to Opinion’s web site informs users that they will arrive at a site with reviews of this particular business. The Ninth Circuit summed up the weakness of Abbey’s argument here when it recognized that internet users:

fully expect to find some sites that aren’t what they imagine based on a glance at the domain name or search engine summary. Outside the special case of . . . domains that actively claim affiliation with the trademark holder, consumers don’t form any firm expectations about the sponsorship of a website until they’ve seen the landing page – if then.

[...]

Though it is not an element of an infringement claim, Abbey also alleges at that Opinion is diverting Internet users to Abbey’s competitors by providing advertising on its web site. Even if this were an element of an infringement claim these allegations would not help Abbey. Opinion does not create these advertising links, and they are tailored to the search patterns of visitors.

[T]here is nothing actionable about Opinion’s use of the Abbey Dental mark in its sub-domain [abbey-dental.pissedconsumer.com]. Tabari is instructive here, and observed that,

when Internet users search for a web site through a search engine the consumer will click on the link for a likely-relevant site without paying much attention to the URL. Use of a trademark in the site’s domain name isn’t materially different from use in its text or metatags in this context; a search engine can find a trademark in a site regardless of where exactly it appears.

As for any "customer confusion," not even a "moron in a hurry" would think Pissed Consumer's gripe page was somehow an official extension of the Abbey Dental brand. Not only that, but it's impossible to write about a business without using the business's name.

Abbey’s argument on this point is frivolous on its face; Opinion’s use is plainly a nominative fair use of the “Abbey Dental” mark; there is no way to have a review page about a business without naming the business. Opinion does nothing to create any sense of affiliation or sponsorship by the thousands of reviewed businesses.

Since Abbey Dental seems intent on avoiding fights it knows it can lose (Section 230, Nevada's anti-SLAPP law), Pissed Consumer is bringing the fight to it. The combination motion asks for both a dismissal and sanctioning under the state's anti-SLAPP law. As Randazza points out in the motion, the company's federal filing shouldn't allow it to escape the reach of local statutes.

The motion notes that Abbey Dental's bogus trademark infringement lawsuit is just a creative way to avoid dealing with legal precedent it can't surmount and is wholly intended to make criticism of it disappear. This is made even more explicit by its requested injunction.

Abbey’s claims are centered on the theory that Opinion is liable for directing consumers to through its use of industry-standard sub-domains and Google ad copy. To ensure that users actually see reviews about a company, a consumer review web site must use a given business’s name in a sub-domain and ad copy. To restrict such a site from doing so would be to effectively remove web pages containing reviews of the business from the Internet, as no one would be able to find them while performing an Internet search. Abbey’s prayer for relief makes this even clearer, as it seeks both a preliminary and permanent injunction barring Opinion from using Abbey’s name on pissedconsumer.com.

Pissed Consumer is not only asking for a dismissal and a fee award under the anti-SLAPP statute, but also additional sanctions against Abbey Dental for bringing such a frivolous complaint to court.

With any luck, this will all be granted. Abbey Dental has to know its trademark infringement claims are baseless. I guess it was hoping Pissed Consumer would be less familiar with IP law, or that the presiding judge would would be the "moron in a hurry," mistaking a lot of legal-sounding mumbo jumbo for actionable claims.

Final note: Abbey Dental's reputation may be hurting right now, but I assume the installation of Dr. [name], [title] will soon turn things around.

from the well,-here-we-go... dept

In the last few weeks, we've written a few posts about Richart Ruddie's company, Profile Defenders, which appears to be "improving reputations" online by filing bogus defamation lawsuits, finding a bogus made-up "defendant" to "admit" to posting defamatory information, reaching a "settlement" and getting a court order. The whole scheme is about getting that court order, which is then sent on to Google and others (mainly Google). The whole point: if Google sees a court order saying that some content is defamatory, it will de-index that page. That the whole process to get that court order is a total sham is basically ignored. That may be changing. We were just noting that some of Profile Defenders' cases are in trouble, and at least one has had the court order vacated.

Of course, it appears that Ruddie and Profile Defenders are not the only ones playing this game of judicial fraud. We wrote about a bunch of similar cases back in March that were targeting the online review site Pissed Consumer and some other review sites. At the time, Pissed Consumer had found 11 such lawsuits. In that article, we noted some of the lawyers and firms that appeared to be either involved or benefiting from these cases. And it appears that Pissed Consumer has had enough -- and has sued (represented by Marc Randazaa).

You can read the full complaint, which is an interesting read. It goes into great detail on each of the different cases that it's suing over, but the introduction to the complaint lays out the basics. I'm reposting it in full (minus some citations) here because it's a good summary:

This case involves a creative solution to a common frustration for
many businesses, who do not like negative reviews that are published about them
on the Internet. However, removing consumer reviews from the Internet is a
difficult process given that they are protected by the First Amendment.

Nevada Corporate Headquarters, has gone to great lengths to
attempt to suppress consumer reviews in the past. It has filed at least one SLAPP
suit in Nevada seeking injunctive relief to censor those negative reviews. In that
case, Nevada Corporate Headquarters suffered a resounding loss when they
were hit with an anti-SLAPP order.... They also lost at summary judgment in a SLAPP-back suit. That action resulted in
a significant judgment for attorney fees and costs....

Undaunted by these set-backs, Nevada Corporate Headquarters
has now conspired with other companies and individuals to create a scam
whereby they suppress negative reviews from the Internet, while evading any First
Amendment or due process considerations. This scam also allows them to avoid
the risk of another anti-SLAPP attorney fee award.

Several other businesses and professionals who have been the
subject of negative reviews online have also employed the same fraudulent
machinery as Nevada Corporate Headquarters, as a means of removing this
content while evading detection and liability.

The scam is not all that complicated. Google will remove search
engine results from its well-known search engine if it is provided with a court order
determining that the information is indeed defamatory.

However, when Nevada Corporate Headquarters sued consumer
review websites in the past, it was severely disappointed. (See Exhibits 1 & 2.)
Therefore, they needed to concoct a new censorship scam. So they used a
stooge plaintiff, ZCS Inc. ("ZCS"), to sue a stooge defendant, Collins Mattos
("Mattos").

Defendant Doe Corporations, so called “reputation management
companies,” conceived and organized the scam as an alternative way to
remove negative posts in lieu of undergoing an adversarial proceeding. Several
other businesses and professionals have contacted these “reputation
management companies,” which have used similar schemes to remove negative
consumer reviews about them.

The other conspirators engaged attorneys Mark W. Lapham
("Lapham") and Owen T. Mascott (“Mascott”) to file sham lawsuits either by the
subjects of the negative reviews or by corporations that had no interest in the
allegedly defamatory statements, against a defendant who most certainly was
not the party that published the allegedly defamatory statements, and the parties
immediately stipulated to a judgment of injunctive relief, so the conspirators could
provide the order to Google and other search engines, thus achieving the goal
of deindexing all pages containing negative reviews.

At first blush, Defendants’ scam appears rather brilliant but incredibly
unethical. Now that Plaintiff has uncovered and exposed Defendants’ unlawful
deeds, Consumer Opinion LLC respectfully requests that this Court discipline them
for those misdeeds.

The rest of the filing goes into a lot more details about these court orders, obtained under false pretenses.

The actual claims in the case are for unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices, abuse of process and civil conspiracy. As we've seen in other cases, actually getting lawyers disciplined for such bad behavior is actually fairly rare. But Randazza has a history of being a bulldog about these kinds of things (remember Righthaven?). This should be an interesting case to follow.

from the with-unwitting-accomplice,-Judicial-Branch dept

Pissed Consumer has uncovered an apparent abuse of the court system by reputation management firms. Getting allegedly defamatory links delisted by Google requires a court order, which is something very few people can actually obtain. But the plaintiffs featured in this Pissed Consumer post seem to have no trouble acquiring these -- often within a few days of filing their lawsuits.

So far, we have collected 11 cases filed in the Superior Court of Contra Costa County in the State of California, where a very suspicious plaintiff files a lawsuit for defamation on one or several third party websites. The lawsuit is filed for a particular Plaintiff, while benefit (removal from search engine) is obtained by another business entity.

Below is just part of the list of cases filed with this court.

What's interesting about all of these cases is how quickly they reach a resolution -- and always in favor of the plaintiff.

In this case it was three weeks. In a normal defamation case, the plaintiff would be lucky to have been granted permission to pursue discovery of the anonymous poster's real identity by this point. But in these cases, not only has the person been identified, but they've also entered a sworn statement admitting their guilt. With this judgment in hand, the plaintiffs approach Google and have the "defamatory" links delisted. (Nearly) instant SEO win.

This suspicious timeline is reflected in other cases filed in the same court.

Now, since it is an anonymous review, let’s ask ourselves a question: how did Attorney Mascott find a defendant in this case without subpoenaing PissedConsumer for their identity? Did he just get lucky? How was Demoin Stroman III, the Defendant in this case, was located just one day after the case had been filed; and not only was located, but also managed to almost immediately provide AttorneyMascott with his fully executed Affidavit? Now, if it were a single case, we could say all this was possible. However, when we are looking at 11 (! ELEVEN ) cases in Contra Costa county in California with exactly the same pattern, it “all this” starts looking quite suspicious…

Just as suspicious is the fact that the defamed party apparently knew the defamer (found him in one day!) but still chose to go through the court system, rather than have the defamer provide a notarized letter to Pissed Consumer directly to get the original review taken down, rather than just the Google search results.

But this is all about cleaning up search results, rather than actually hunting down the real people behind the anonymous Pissed Consumer postings. The court order obtained in this case doesn't even refer to the original posting, nor its actual URL.

The allegedly defamatory statements as presented in the Final Judgment are actually not on the PissedConsumer page that is being removed. Whoever the perpetrators are in this case, their approach was to get Google to de-index the PissedConsumer listing (sub-domain page) for keyword ‘Reputation Defender’.

Another company whose web presence used to be defined by negative reviewshas cleaned up its search results using the Contra Costa court system. There's only the smallest indication on the first page of Google search results that something might be off.

That link leads to this takedown request and court order. Once again, the targeted URL is not the negative review, but the entire subdomain referring to BlueGreen Resorts (http://bluegreen-resorts.pissedconsumer.com). And, again, the sworn statement from the supposed defamer was obtained in two days, putting this on the fast track for a judgment in favor of the plaintiff Majestic Vacations (which doesn't even exist according to California business records). In a normal case, any forward movement would still be months away. The docket for this case shows a case management conference set for July 13… which has now been nullified by the speedy delivery of a sworn admission of guilt.

In the case of RepDefense Solutions suing on behalf of Reputation Defender, that "company" was "formed" on the same dayits lawsuit was filed: February 2nd. Just as attorney Owen Mascott's link to any reputation management firm cannot be determined at this point, nominal company figurehead "Monica Andersen" is a similar dead end.

The two attorneys behind the filings Pissed Consumer uncovered have had their licenses suspended multiple times. What appears to be happening here -- fake companies suing fake defamers -- should result in further discipline, if anyone can tie the two to a reputation management firm… or to the defendants who are always magically located and convinced to sign statements with a couple of days of filing.

These two are apparently helping questionable businesses paper over their dismal reputations with possibly fraudulently-obtained court orders. Unfortunately, courts can be manipulated just like search engine results by those willing to try anything to clean up their online reputation. Putting more eyes on this shady reputation management tactic will hopefully expose the entity behind it.

from the well,-this-could-be-interesting dept

Remember Roca Labs? The somewhat shady manufacturer of some goop that the company claimed was an "alternative to gastric bypass surgery." This was the company that initially sued the site PissedConsumer.com because it was hosting negative reviews of Roca's product -- and Roca claimed that because it pressured buyers into a gag clause saying they wouldn't say anything bad about the product, that PissedConsumer was engaged in tortious interference. There was a lot more as well, including threatening to sue us at Techdirt (more than once!) for reporting on the case, suing Pissed Consumer's lawyer Marc Randazza for defamation and a variety of other shenanigans (even including some bizarre side stories on Nevada politics, despite it being a Florida company). Anyway, late last year the FTC smacked down Roca for its misleading marketing and its non-disparagement clauses. Roca is still fighting that fight, but soon after it also lost the case against PissedConsumer.

However, there was (yet another) separate legal fight that didn't get much attention in all of this. In late 2014, we had reported that, in continuing with its efforts to hide any negative reviews, Roca Labs had sent a clearly bogus DMCA takedown to Google (see it here), claiming that the reviews on PissedConsumer's site violated its copyrights. What I had not realized was PissedConsumer actually had filed a separate lawsuit against Roca back in January of 2015, focused solely on these bogus DMCA takedowns, arguing that they had violated the infamous DMCA 512(f) clause on bogus takedowns.

As we've noted, 512(f) cases are rarely successful, as courts don't seem to care much about them, and the law is written in such a manner that it's usually pretty easy to dance around a claim of "misrepresentation" in a DMCA takedown. And, in this case, the court dismissed the case, by basically saying that it was really nothing more than a counterclaim in the other, original, case filed by Roca. However, in a somewhat surprising move (actually, very surprising), the court has now agreed that the decision to dismiss the case was a mistake, and that this is a separate issue from the original case, and not a counterclaim. The reasoning is somewhat technical and procedural, but at the very least, it appears that the case against Roca for abusing the DMCA is back on track.

from the just-one-of-many-issues... dept

Roca Labs has not been having a good fall. Just a few weeks after the FTC came down hard on Roca Labs, for its ridiculous gag clause, as well as for its misleading marketing, it appears that Roca Labs has now lost its lawsuit against Pissed Consumer. As you may recall, we first wrote about Roca Labs a little over a year ago when it sued PissedConsumer, ridiculously arguing "tortious interference" because Pissed Consumer effectively encouraged people to write negative reviews which would, in turn, violate the gag clause in Roca Labs sales' contract. This seemed like a ridiculous stretch and... the court agreed. The judge has little trouble pointing out that CDA 230 clearly protects Pissed Consumer from liability for any reviews written by users, noting that CDA 230 protects against tortious interference claims.

One by one, the court rejects Roca Labs' ridiculous attempts to get around CDA 230. First, Roca argued that because Pissed Consumer tweeted out links to the negative Roca reviews (and shortened some quotes to fit into Twitter's 140 character limit), that made it no longer a service provider. The court says "that's not how this works..." It points to other cases that clearly say editing others content or trimming it for length still retain CDA 230 immunity. And notes that even if the statements were defamatory, CDA 230 still protects the reposting:

Trimming the posts in length to fit within Twitter’s
character limit and tweeting a “teaser” or preview of posts
do not preclude Consumer Opinion and Opinion Corp. from
asserting Section 230 immunity, because the underlying
information was provided by a third party.

The fact that Pissed Consumer added Roca Labs' Twitter handle to its tweets doesn't change anything either. Nor does the addition of links.

With respect to the addition of links to the tweets,
providing links to negative costumer-review posts does not
preclude Section 230 immunity. For example, in Directory
Assistants, several defamatory posts about the plaintiff were
placed on a consumer-review website....
The defendant then forwarded links to those allegedly
defamatory comments via email to a prospective client of the
plaintiff.... The plaintiff sued for tortious
interference with a business expectancy and the defendant
asserted Section 230 immunity.... The court found
forwarding links to negative posts did not constitute content
creation and therefore the defendant was immune under Section
230.

Okay, then, how about the fact that Pissed Consumer did some search engine optimization to make the reviews more findable on Google. The court basically says "so what?"

Search engine optimization does not vitiate immunity
under Section 230 of the CDA. In Dowbenko, the plaintiff
alleged Google published a defamatory article about the
plaintiff on a website.... Google allegedly used
algorithms to manipulate its search results causing the
article to appear directly below the plaintiff’s own website
in Google searches.... The district court granted Google
immunity and the Dowbenko court affirmed, holding that search
engine optimization does not preclude Section 230 immunity.... The court also held that a service provider’s or
user’s refusal or failure to remove defamatory comments does
not preclude Section 230 immunity...

The court also rejects the idea that because Pissed Consumer offers pull down menus whereby users indicate if they were "pissed" or "pleased" it somehow wipes away Section 230 immunities. It does not.

Roca’s argument that pissedconsumer.com
materially contributed to the complained of posts is
unavailing. Roca argues that Consumer Opinion and Opinion
Corp. are information content providers because
pissedconsumer.com’s posting process uses drop down menus and
radio buttons.... Roca continues
by stating that regardless of whether a third party is
“pissed” or “pleased,” the post shows up as a complaint.... Roca also argues Consumer
Opinion and Opinion Corp. are information content providers
because companies can pay to have testimonials placed on
pissedconsumer.com....

Courts, however, have held such processes do not turn a
service provider into an information content provider. For
example, in Xcentric Ventures the complaint brought a
defamation claim arising from comments left on a consumer-complaint
website.... The plaintiff argued
that because the website provided categorical descriptions
from which a third party could select, the website was an
information content provider.... The court rejected that
argument reasoning the website provided multiple descriptions
and the website’s operators did not participate in the
selection of descriptions..... Rather, the third
parties selected the descriptions.... Accordingly, the court
found that Section 230 immunity applied to the website.

The court also laughs away Roca's continued pointing to Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUPTA) noting that (1) Roca would have to show that Pissed Consumer's practices were deceptive and unfair and (2) it doesn't matter anyway because the site is protected by CDA 230.

In short, the court pretty easily knocks down every argument from Roca Labs and agrees that Pissed Consumer is protected by Section 230 -- exactly as we predicted 13 months ago when we first posted about the lawsuit. Of course, in the intervening months, Roca Labs has threatened to sue us and others multiple times, and has actually filed lawsuits against former customers, some other online critics, and one of Pissed Consumer's lawyers, Marc Randazza. And, it's actually still fighting against the FTC, arguing that the gag clause in its agreements is perfectly valid. I imagine an apology from Roca Labs for wasting our time with bogus legal threats isn't likely forthcoming, but I'll chalk it up to the fact that the company is probably pretty busy dealing with the FTC.